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Speaker 4: Hey guys, welcome back Earn Your Lisia episode twenty five century,
Speaker 4: quarter of a century, quarter of a century. So today's
Speaker 4: a very special episode.
Speaker 3: A special now, yeah, very very special, very bad, but
Speaker 3: I'll give some some background.
Speaker 4: So, first of all, thank you for your support. Earn
Speaker 4: Your Lesia podcast is one of the top business podcasts,
Speaker 4: not in America, in the world global now in six months.
Speaker 4: It's very humbling. It's very rare to be in the
Speaker 4: top five percent of all podcasts in the world when
Speaker 4: it's over nine hundred thousand podcasts. So first and foremost,
Speaker 4: we cannot do that without you guys support, So thank you,
Speaker 4: we appreciate it. And also we have a very special
Speaker 4: guest today, So we're going to talk about the hair
Speaker 4: industry and we're also going to talk about the festival industry.
Speaker 4: We're going to talk about business, we're going to talk
Speaker 4: about working with friends, a lot of different stuff.
Speaker 5: But I'll give you a quick background.
Speaker 4: So Simone Mayor is an entrepreneur and she also is
Speaker 4: part of Curly Girl Collective. So Curly Girl Collective they
Speaker 4: have an event called curl Fest. So curl Fest is
Speaker 4: a festival that is done every year in New York City.
Speaker 4: To actually expanding, we'll talk about that. And previously in
Speaker 4: previous year they've had up to thirty five thousand people
Speaker 4: come to the fest.
Speaker 3: So that's that's like bigger than basketball arenas.
Speaker 4: No, it's huge, it's the biggest. It's the largest natural
Speaker 4: hair festival.
Speaker 5: In the world, in the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I would probably say one of the largest
Speaker 4: hair festivals, right, I would assume period something alone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, period period.
Speaker 4: So it's like the Coachella. It's like the Coachella of
Speaker 4: natural hair.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and natural beauty. We like to say natural beauty
Speaker 6: because it's broader than just hair.
Speaker 3: But wait, we love that the part that she's from
Speaker 3: the town of Green No, no, get to that.
Speaker 5: So it's very it's very rare to have a top podcast.
Speaker 4: It's very rare to have up to thirty five people,
Speaker 4: thirty five thousand people come to a festival and have
Speaker 4: one of the top festivals in America, in the world.
Speaker 4: But it's extremely rare to actually go to high school
Speaker 4: and grow up with somebody. So we all come from
Speaker 4: the same neighborhood. We all went to high school together.
Speaker 4: So congratulations and yeah, as I said, it's extremely rare
Speaker 4: that you know, we can sit here and have this conversation.
Speaker 4: She's doing big things before us, long before she was
Speaker 4: doing big things, and now we have a platform. So
Speaker 4: we definitely wanted to bring hometown hero.
Speaker 3: Hometown hair Homecoming Part two. We have valid one. It
Speaker 3: comes home coming party for sure.
Speaker 5: So yeah, we come from a special place.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: A lot of people are doing good things. So yeah,
Speaker 4: that's dope. It's really dope. So first and foremost, thank
Speaker 4: you for coming.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Welcome. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So we're gonna we're gonna jump right into it. As
Speaker 4: I said, the natural If you're not familiar, the hair
Speaker 4: care industry is huge. It's a billion dollar industry, right,
Speaker 4: especially black women's hair. I think it saying. I've read
Speaker 4: somewhere that the haircare industry, black women make up eighty
Speaker 4: five percent of the dollars that are put into the
Speaker 4: haircre industry.
Speaker 5: Right, it's huge. It's like billions of dollars. Right.
Speaker 4: So for years it's been on the side of changing
Speaker 4: your hair like perms and relaxers and things of that nature.
Speaker 4: But now it's been a shift in the culture and
Speaker 4: in the world really where now people are moving away
Speaker 4: from that and going more towards natural hair. Like what
Speaker 4: they have as far as you know, whether it be dreadlogs,
Speaker 4: whether it be afro, whether it be just curly, And
Speaker 4: you know, that's one of the reasons why your festival
Speaker 4: was so successful is because you know, it's picked up
Speaker 4: momentum and it's in season right now and hopefully you
Speaker 4: know that lasts forever. But you know, so first, first
Speaker 4: and foremost, we're going to talk about the business up here,
Speaker 4: because some people men a lot of times and other
Speaker 4: cultures they may not fully under staying how much money
Speaker 4: spent on here. The pressure of hair, The psychology of
Speaker 4: hair is a very important thing right here is extremely important.
Speaker 4: Tit doesn't have any here. Yeah, man, he has a beer,
Speaker 4: so we're counting that now. For a while, I was like,
Speaker 4: can I attend the girl first? Of course I got
Speaker 4: no hair, so yeah, so all right, So so here
Speaker 4: psychology of hair for for for even for us we're black,
Speaker 4: but we're not women.
Speaker 5: So as a young girl growing up, like, can you
Speaker 5: talk about the.
Speaker 4: Psychology of hair and how hair really plays a major
Speaker 4: part in women's lives and yeah.
Speaker 2: Self esteem one.
Speaker 6: So the psychology of hair, that's a big one. So
Speaker 6: I'll give you a high level idea. So for black
Speaker 6: women here is bigger than just hair, right. It represents
Speaker 6: skewed perceptions of beauty that we have been fed since
Speaker 6: we were two years old.
Speaker 2: It represents, you.
Speaker 6: Know, everything that the society deems as innately black or African,
Speaker 6: as unkempt, not beautiful. All of these things, from our
Speaker 6: dark skin to our kinky hair, our nose, our texture
Speaker 6: of our hear, all of these things have been we
Speaker 6: have been taught that these things are not beautiful. And
Speaker 6: and you know, you guys have seen studies with the
Speaker 6: doll projects back when these I think it's the seventies
Speaker 6: where young girls and boys that we're four and three
Speaker 6: years old, we're given a white doll and a black doll,
Speaker 6: and every single time the black doll was deemed ugly
Speaker 6: or not pretty. And this is because it's taught. It's
Speaker 6: been taught for generations from your grandparents, you know, combing
Speaker 6: your hair and pulling it and saying your hair is
Speaker 6: tough and is a mess, and using these these these
Speaker 6: words like unpretty and nappy and ugly. These things are
Speaker 6: taught until you know, and for generations, to your parents,
Speaker 6: to your own children, to yourself. And it isn't until
Speaker 6: you actually come to the realization on your own do
Speaker 6: you realize that you kind.
Speaker 2: Of absorb these type of ideals.
Speaker 6: And you may not even know. So for hair, for
Speaker 6: Black women, especially, It represents a lot of pain. Sometimes
Speaker 6: it represents beauty what we consider beautiful, what men or
Speaker 6: society or the media considers beautiful with us. So it's yeah,
Speaker 6: it's it's more than just hair. And I say that
Speaker 6: all the time that Curly Girl Collective, even though it
Speaker 6: says curly or the or curl Fez is presumably about hair,
Speaker 6: it's much large. It's a much larger conversation. Curl Fez
Speaker 6: ironically is not about hair. Curly Girl Collective is not
Speaker 6: about hair. It's about a bigger conversation about changing the
Speaker 6: ideals and societies. You know, Western ideas of beauty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I mean systemically for years and we're eighties
Speaker 3: babies and we set this kind off camera, but the
Speaker 3: image of beauty has always been a European ideal. Yea,
Speaker 3: it was straight here, it was very slim, so like
Speaker 3: when you were growing up, it was Barbie dolls and
Speaker 3: it was sports illustrated magazines and none of the women
Speaker 3: look like you. And over the past i'd say ten years,
Speaker 3: we've kind of seen that shift. And I think that
Speaker 3: your crew, your collective is doing an amazing job of
Speaker 3: doing that or changing the narrative where it's like now
Speaker 3: we see real life actors and actresses and cartoon figures
Speaker 3: that represent us and it's changing, right, So like my
Speaker 3: daughter now grows up in the world where that black
Speaker 3: doll is now beautiful because it looks like her. Whereas
Speaker 3: you know, for girls your age and girls who grew
Speaker 3: up in that era, it didn't exist exactly, you know,
Speaker 3: so systemically it was put a certain way. But you're
Speaker 3: changing that and I think that's amazing, thank you.
Speaker 6: Yes, slowly changing the conversation. And we still have some
Speaker 6: ways to go, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: So let's go into some numbers. So, as I said,
Speaker 4: eighty African American or black women represent eighty five percent
Speaker 4: of the beauty industry, even though we're fourteen percent of
Speaker 4: the total population of the United States, right, So and
Speaker 4: then also they estimate the black hair industry at two
Speaker 4: point five billion dollars industry and that's not even including wigs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's kind of undervalue because it doesn't include
Speaker 3: wigs and weaves. And you know, we have mothers and
Speaker 3: we have sisters, so we know, like that's a huge
Speaker 3: part of the industry. It's expensive extensions, braids, all these things.
Speaker 3: The amount that it costs to put these things in
Speaker 3: your hair, right, So from a beautiician standpoint, and the
Speaker 3: amount of money that is sold in those salons, like
Speaker 3: it's at a two point five billion. If you add
Speaker 3: those things up, we're talking like maybe ten to fifteen billions.
Speaker 3: So it's a little undervalued in.
Speaker 2: The Absolutely, we have a huge.
Speaker 6: Power in what we end in the beauty market, and
Speaker 6: it isn't until now that we're actually using the power
Speaker 6: to change the conversation of what we want to see
Speaker 6: on the aisles represented in the media and changing the
Speaker 6: definition of what is considered beautiful. It's not until now
Speaker 6: we're seeing that we use our own power to make
Speaker 6: that shift.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because even I was surprised by some of the numbers.
Speaker 4: So they said that relaxes are down twenty six percent,
Speaker 4: so people are moving away from that, right, but there's
Speaker 4: still so India imports six million pounds of hair to America.
Speaker 4: China imports one point five million pounds of hair.
Speaker 5: It's a lot to American, it's a lot of here.
Speaker 5: So that's a lot of hair, right.
Speaker 4: So it's it's really interesting because like I said a
Speaker 4: lot of times, other coach, they don't fully understand because
Speaker 4: it's different, like they the hair upkeep is different, right,
Speaker 4: So like, what do you think the average cost of
Speaker 4: maintaining here?
Speaker 5: Because it's expensive either way.
Speaker 4: Even if you go natural, you still got to maintain naturally, right,
Speaker 4: and then if you if you're not natural, then you
Speaker 4: obviously have to maintain that as well. So I've seen
Speaker 4: I've heard women say five hundred dollars a month, six
Speaker 4: hundred dollars a month, seven hundred dollars a month. Like
Speaker 4: what would you from your friends your personal experience, what
Speaker 4: have you seen as far as.
Speaker 6: Like average just buying natural hair products a loon or
Speaker 6: hair products a loon, you can spend several hundred dollars
Speaker 6: a month.
Speaker 2: I think that's easy.
Speaker 6: It's the average product is maybe between ten and twenty
Speaker 6: five dollars.
Speaker 3: So what product are we talking about? Like what are
Speaker 3: we buying? Is it like shampoos or conditioners? Like what
Speaker 3: are we doing?
Speaker 6: Shampoos, conditioners made specifically for your hair type, curling creams,
Speaker 6: twist out creams.
Speaker 2: I can list what we call it. We call it
Speaker 2: product junkies.
Speaker 6: In a natural hair world, that I could have a
Speaker 6: full closet full of natural hair products and I get
Speaker 6: access to a lot of them, and I'm still in
Speaker 6: the beauty supply store buying products, trying to find new
Speaker 6: things that work with my our hair. And part of
Speaker 6: that is because, especially for natural hair women, we're relearning
Speaker 6: how to work with our hair after years of not
Speaker 6: being able to use it or or understand how to
Speaker 6: make our hair look beautiful when we walk out the
Speaker 6: door or style it. We have to change and relearn
Speaker 6: these things. So anytime a new product comes out and
Speaker 6: shows you your hair look in a different way, everybody's
Speaker 6: great runs to go get it. And it's part of
Speaker 6: that relearning process as well, which.
Speaker 2: Leads to us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you said something very important. You said that you know,
Speaker 3: we're the biggest consumers of hair right the United States
Speaker 3: and Black culture for sure, but we don't have any
Speaker 3: We don't supply it though, which is kind of weird, right,
Speaker 3: Like you would think that because we use it so much,
Speaker 3: that we would actually have independent agencies and companies coming
Speaker 3: out with products to supply. Why do you think that's
Speaker 3: not happening in our community.
Speaker 2: To supply hair or the hair products vote.
Speaker 6: We do have some black owned hair products, and we
Speaker 6: try to promote them as much as we can we
Speaker 6: don't have as many in the mainstream as we would
Speaker 6: like because of a number of reasons, access to capital
Speaker 6: to be able to produce products at the level and
Speaker 6: at the scale that you would need to to get
Speaker 6: it into the big stores. However, Target and big brands
Speaker 6: are seeing the need for that, and you see the change.
Speaker 2: You'll see right at the end cap.
Speaker 6: You'll see hair products made by one person, a black woman,
Speaker 6: like let's say Eating Bodyworks, for instance, made by a
Speaker 6: young black woman when she was sixteen years old, in Target,
Speaker 6: or all sorts of other things. There's the Shamee Moistures
Speaker 6: of the World, also made by black men. Richard lu Dennis.
Speaker 6: He's huge, but it started in a very humble place, right,
Speaker 6: so independently, and you do see these things changing, and
Speaker 6: a lot more brands in the big stores, the big
Speaker 6: box store now than you did even five years ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean yeah, we actually researched that as well.
Speaker 4: And one of the things is that, yeah, like you said, Target, Walmart,
Speaker 4: they're all starting to incorporate natural hair products.
Speaker 5: And even other companies.
Speaker 4: Are like Loreal and Revel, but like Loreal, they own
Speaker 4: dark and lovely in their own carter daughter. They bought
Speaker 4: Carroll's daughter in Reveel. I think Cream of Nature they own.
Speaker 4: So that's a little discouraging on a certain level, right,
Speaker 4: because it's like the kind of question. They're catering towards
Speaker 4: black women's hair from black companies, but they don't they
Speaker 4: own those companies, so they still are control of the marketplace,
Speaker 4: even though I mean it's good that they're starting to
Speaker 4: cater towards it. They offer products, right, but they're still
Speaker 4: in control of the money. All right, So we're gonna switch.
Speaker 4: We're gonna talk about the festival before it's about the festivals.
Speaker 4: I wanted to just ask a question as far as entrepreneurship,
Speaker 4: because all right, obviously you're passionate about hair, right, something
Speaker 4: that you know you've done all your life as far
Speaker 4: as you have hair, and you had hair and you
Speaker 4: know you' but what made you take this idea, come
Speaker 4: together with your friends and actually start even if it
Speaker 4: didn't start as a business, because you kind of gave
Speaker 4: us some back and round information, But what made you
Speaker 4: actually want to come together and actually start something in
Speaker 4: related to the hair care industry?
Speaker 6: I think how my friends became my business partners and
Speaker 6: started this was a little serendipitous in a way. I've
Speaker 6: always been kind of passionate about diversity and black people
Speaker 6: and all of these things and creating avenues for us,
Speaker 6: and so it's always been kind of something what of
Speaker 6: a passion of mine. And how we came together, it
Speaker 6: was just like minded individuals. And when I say that,
Speaker 6: I mean reaching out to our network. I didn't know
Speaker 6: there are five of us in Curly Girl collective. Two
Speaker 6: of us went to college together. We went to Temple.
Speaker 6: The three of us went to college together, Jiya and Scheriz,
Speaker 6: Melody and Tracy. I did not know them, but I
Speaker 6: knew another mutual friend, and we kind of just started
Speaker 6: talking about it about random musings and natural our hair
Speaker 6: and che transitioning into natural hair was a common topic,
Speaker 6: and just talking and reaching out to our network became
Speaker 6: more of a hobby. We k started the group a
Speaker 6: Google group that grew to about seventy people from anywhere
Speaker 6: from New York to London, to to Africa to Ghana,
Speaker 6: and we just started to talk about our hair every day,
Speaker 6: all day and until we realized, Okay, this is something bigger. Obviously,
Speaker 6: this is demand for it. Let's come together and have
Speaker 6: one little meet up at Tracy Tows. We had a meetup.
Speaker 6: It was great, it was wonderful. We we learned that
Speaker 6: we missed this face to face experience.
Speaker 2: That we couldn't get from googling reviews on a hair product, right, So.
Speaker 6: We did that and then twenty twenty eleven was our
Speaker 6: very first event. We decided to bring it to the masses.
Speaker 6: We didn't have really any experience. Three of the members
Speaker 6: weren't advertising. I come from an IT background, another member
Speaker 6: came from risk management background. And what we all had
Speaker 6: a vision and we felt like the energy in this
Speaker 6: room and this small apartment in Brooklyn that we came
Speaker 6: randomly came together. There are other people out there that
Speaker 6: really need to feel this, right. So we had our
Speaker 6: very first event.
Speaker 2: It was great.
Speaker 6: Maybe three hundred people came and nothing but family and
Speaker 6: friends and friends of what was.
Speaker 5: The first event?
Speaker 3: Like what was it?
Speaker 6: It was called Collective Expression, still my very favorite event.
Speaker 6: We randomly, somehow got a nice high rise duplex in
Speaker 6: Manhattan for free, just by reaching out to our network
Speaker 6: and communicating. And we didn't put a deck together from
Speaker 6: pictures from the Brooklyn apartment. We didn't have anything. We
Speaker 6: had an idea. We had pictures of what we could do.
Speaker 6: We had some emails where we co called a bunch
Speaker 6: of sponsors and our connects, and one.
Speaker 2: Of them stuck.
Speaker 3: We did some groundwork.
Speaker 2: We did some groundwork. Yeah, we got the place for free.
Speaker 2: We didn't have any money.
Speaker 6: All of the sponsors said no, and so one sponsor,
Speaker 6: Miss Jesse's, was the only sponsor that said yes.
Speaker 2: She came.
Speaker 6: They brought their whole entire crew, brought products for everybody
Speaker 6: that came. We had what we call a big chop
Speaker 6: at the event, which a young lady who had a
Speaker 6: natural perm cut off of her hair.
Speaker 2: At the event, Miss Jesse's did that. It was great.
Speaker 6: We had raffles, it was just a great photo ops,
Speaker 6: all sorts of things, and it was just a really
Speaker 6: great experience. And from then that's where Curly Girl Collective
Speaker 6: kind of was born. And for the next few years
Speaker 6: we had small events three hundred and two hundred people,
Speaker 6: and then twenty fourteen curl Fest was born.
Speaker 3: And from there, so.
Speaker 4: Now we're gonna go into into carol Fest and how
Speaker 4: it actually blew up. All right, So we got the backstory,
Speaker 4: and I'm glad you said that because people a lot
Speaker 4: of times even with our podcast. They're like, oh, how
Speaker 4: did y'all just blow up overnight? But nothing happens overnight, right,
Speaker 4: They just see the success and they think that it
Speaker 4: happens overnight. So they see thirty twenty thirty five thousand
Speaker 4: people coming to your events and they're like, how did
Speaker 4: this happen? But you know, you you gave some of
Speaker 4: the backstory how you grew it from an apartment in
Speaker 4: Brooklyn to three hundred people and.
Speaker 5: You just steadily grew it.
Speaker 4: So you said in twenty fourteen, that's when it that's
Speaker 4: when everything changed.
Speaker 5: Right, Yes, So how did it?
Speaker 4: Because we're gonna talk about the festival because this is
Speaker 4: this is another top We talked about hair, but I
Speaker 4: think the festival industry within itself is a very interesting
Speaker 4: topic didn't cover because festival is huge right now. Look
Speaker 4: at Coachella, Essence Festival. It's a bunch of different festivals happens. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a bunch of Yeah, Governor's Ball, there's a bunch
Speaker 4: of different stuff.
Speaker 3: No, no, what's it called the Jordia Miami Smoking Loud, smoking,
Speaker 3: rolling loud, rolling loud, rolling lou in loud.
Speaker 4: So it's a bunch of different festivals right now. And
Speaker 4: obviously it's a business, it's an industry. People are obviously
Speaker 4: making money, but do it if they weren't making it?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: But it's a process to go to that, And a
Speaker 4: lot of times people get intimidated because they see something
Speaker 4: like Essence Festival right shout out to Essence, But Essence
Speaker 4: is a huge brand, so they look at it like, well,
Speaker 4: I can't do that because Essence already has millions of
Speaker 4: dollars in their bank and they you know, they have
Speaker 4: millions of influences and people, so little old me can't
Speaker 4: do that. But you guys just regular people and started,
Speaker 4: as you said, in an apartment in Brooklyn, and you've
Speaker 4: established a global brand and thousands, tens of thousands of
Speaker 4: people coming to your events. So can you walk us
Speaker 4: through the process of how you go from three hundred
Speaker 4: to thirty thousand?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 6: So at twenty fourteen was the first year that curl
Speaker 6: Fest came.
Speaker 2: We thought up the name.
Speaker 6: It really just came because we didn't fit in any
Speaker 6: more New York spaces, right they were capped at three hundred.
Speaker 6: There were men that wanted to come, there were more people.
Speaker 6: They would sell out in minutes and we had to
Speaker 6: demand we had a strong brand at the time, which
Speaker 6: is also very important people would recognize our brand, the
Speaker 6: Curly Girl Collective brand.
Speaker 3: Prior to that, were you're doing it in like club?
Speaker 3: Where were the events at health.
Speaker 6: Various spaces in New York I don't have the name,
Speaker 6: but they were very They weren't really clubs but lounges. Right.
Speaker 6: We had one at TAJ Lounge in twenty first that
Speaker 6: was that was a great event. Yeah, and it was great,
Speaker 6: and we had really good feedback with that, and we
Speaker 6: we were we pride. We were proud of ourselves with
Speaker 6: our creativity, and part of what we felt made us
Speaker 6: different was our creativity and our strong brand. So the
Speaker 6: Curly Girl Collective logo in itself was created as an
Speaker 6: image of three of the members right the hair, three
Speaker 6: natural hair women, and it was people would identify with
Speaker 6: the image of the brand before they would even identify
Speaker 6: the name Curly Girl Collective or the five of us.
Speaker 6: At the time it was eight of us. So that
Speaker 6: was great. It's always great to have a strong brand.
Speaker 6: In twenty fourteen, we wanted to let's say, let's have
Speaker 6: a fun picnic where more people can come in outdoor space,
Speaker 6: and so that's how Curlfest was born. At that time,
Speaker 6: we didn't expect more than five hundred people to come.
Speaker 6: We marketed to and use our social media channels, and
Speaker 6: it wasn't a large social media following at the time,
Speaker 6: and we didn't have a burst of social media following.
Speaker 6: Maybe at the time maybe twenty thousand at most.
Speaker 5: Right, or that's pretty that's pretty good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are like at that time, it's like real following, right,
Speaker 3: you can reach.
Speaker 6: Right, So, and we just reached out to our following
Speaker 6: and we at that time we had maybe two sponsors
Speaker 6: that said yes for curl Fest. It was a concept
Speaker 6: that we put time and effort into creating what we
Speaker 6: wanted to see in the space.
Speaker 2: And yeah, that was it from there.
Speaker 6: From going from the first curl Fest, which guarded maybe
Speaker 6: fifteen hundred people at most, we were ecstatic about that.
Speaker 6: It grew exponentially over the years to the next year
Speaker 6: maybe four or five thousand, the next year seventy five hundred,
Speaker 6: and then the following year was about twenty thousand, So
Speaker 6: we did a huge jump, right, and last year it
Speaker 6: was about thirty five so and we attribute.
Speaker 2: A lot of that to just social media.
Speaker 6: Branding, reaching out and pitching to appropriate press, and also
Speaker 6: being true to our vision. I think what is very
Speaker 6: transparent and unique about Earlier is that we are the
Speaker 6: creators and we are the customer. We know what the
Speaker 6: customer wants to see at the event because she is
Speaker 6: me and I am her. So we listen to our
Speaker 6: customer and then that's part of what makes us authentic.
Speaker 6: And that authenticity is transparent to our customers as well.
Speaker 4: So you said branding, right, because that's very important, right,
Speaker 4: And even with your logo you said people identify.
Speaker 5: We talked about it.
Speaker 4: We did a social media episode a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 4: and I said one of the things that I said
Speaker 4: was that people are more likely to attach themselves and
Speaker 4: follow a brand than an individual person. And I kind
Speaker 4: of used my Instagram page versus earn leigious Instagram page
Speaker 4: where earn your legions growing at a faster rate than
Speaker 4: my personal Instagram page, And it's just human nature. I
Speaker 4: think people are more likely. So who, how did you
Speaker 4: come up with the brand? How did you push the brand?
Speaker 4: How did you promote the brand?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: What was the backstory on neck? I know you said
Speaker 4: that some of you guys had background in marketing.
Speaker 6: Right yep, most of the most of the Curly Girl
Speaker 6: Collective had a background and advertising of some sort and melody.
Speaker 6: She's the creative director and that's what she does for
Speaker 6: a living. At the time, she was a creative director
Speaker 6: and would do commercials for various.
Speaker 2: Companies like home goods and all these things.
Speaker 6: And she was the top creative director in New York
Speaker 6: on the on the East Coast, and she would make
Speaker 6: it her duty also to make sure that there was
Speaker 6: representation in outside of Curly Girl Collective in just the
Speaker 6: general media and any kind of project that she put
Speaker 6: her hands on. And so we were blessed to be
Speaker 6: able to have a good mix of talents within Curly
Speaker 6: Girl Collective already. So sh it was her vision to
Speaker 6: make sure that our brand is represented what we wanted
Speaker 6: to portray to our fans. Even the curl Fest logo
Speaker 6: is just an overlay of the actual images of attendees
Speaker 6: at the event. Every year we have a new curl
Speaker 6: Fest logo and that is from the year prior from
Speaker 6: images from the actual event. And we did that on
Speaker 6: purpose because we wanted people to look at the logo
Speaker 6: and know exactly what we are representing and see themselves
Speaker 6: in the brand and push that, and and and and
Speaker 6: a lot of it was kind of organic. Pushing the
Speaker 6: brand was kind of organic. People were We were at
Speaker 6: the in the right place at the right time. I
Speaker 6: say timing played played a good part in our success
Speaker 6: as well as long as with hard work creativity and
Speaker 6: branding for sure. So people were yearning at the time
Speaker 6: for a need. There was a large elephant in the
Speaker 6: room that there were black women and young girls screaming
Speaker 6: for I need representation, I need something that looks like me,
Speaker 6: yearning for these things, and no one really was paying
Speaker 6: attention to that.
Speaker 2: There was not a space, and we created one. Right.
Speaker 6: There was not there was, There was not and still
Speaker 6: isn't a natural beauty festival dedicated to women of color.
Speaker 6: It doesn't exist. We created that space. There wasn't a
Speaker 6: events at that time catered for women of natural hair
Speaker 6: with natural hair in twenty eleven when we started Curly
Speaker 6: Girl Collective and we created that space. So it was
Speaker 6: more just listening to our audience, hearing the need. Where
Speaker 6: there's where there's a need, there's a market, right, So
Speaker 6: we listened to that and push forward.
Speaker 3: And we saw you said on the first event, you
Speaker 3: had one sponsor say yes missus Jassic carrec up until
Speaker 3: now this year's how many.
Speaker 6: Sponsors we got maybe thirty five or forty, thirty.
Speaker 3: Five or forty. So at this point the sponsorships just
Speaker 3: coming in and you guys have to figure out who
Speaker 3: matches the brand or how do you what's the process
Speaker 3: of getting sponsors and saying yes, this matches with our
Speaker 3: vision and I'm not sure that this matches.
Speaker 6: So Gia is the sponsorship director on our team as well,
Speaker 6: and we put time into creating packages and decks and
Speaker 6: put that together to identify what our our worth is
Speaker 6: and we actively reach out to brands.
Speaker 2: Still it is a.
Speaker 6: Little easier easier with quotes to get brands to pay
Speaker 6: attention to us now because of our history, but we
Speaker 6: still actively outreach to brands, whether and you, and we're
Speaker 6: moving trying to leave broaden the space, so our not
Speaker 6: just beauty brands, moving into trying to get telecommunication brands, right,
Speaker 6: alcohol brands, transportation, all of these things, all of these
Speaker 6: different industries, and it's sometimes it's starting from scratch right start,
Speaker 6: is having to believe in what you provide. Putting a
Speaker 6: package together that makes sense and how you can and
Speaker 6: do your research, how you can provide value to these
Speaker 6: sponsors and pitching to them.
Speaker 4: So you mentioned it DAK, right, because a lot of
Speaker 4: times people don't know. We actually recently found out what
Speaker 4: the DAK was. We didn't know what the dark was, right.
Speaker 4: So DAK if anybody's not familiar, it's like a one
Speaker 4: page or two page or it's just a it has
Speaker 4: information like how many people come to your event and
Speaker 4: the demographics of your event and stuff like that right
Speaker 4: where you you present it to companies, and it's kind
Speaker 4: of like a one page of like a resume, like
Speaker 4: pretty much.
Speaker 3: For you, that's a fair comparison. It's like a resume.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So but this is all stuff that a lot of
Speaker 4: times you just learn on the fly. You don't know
Speaker 4: how to do it right. So that's just one of
Speaker 4: the things with our show. We weren't just trying to
Speaker 4: educate people as much as possible because, like I said,
Speaker 4: even us, we're still learning stuff as we go.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So you put together that right, which I just kind
Speaker 4: of explained what it is. But you can google and
Speaker 4: kind of get templates on how to make a deck.
Speaker 4: What's the process of reaching out to a company, because
Speaker 4: you can just eat randomly, email somebody or call somebody,
Speaker 4: But like, how do you get in front of it?
Speaker 4: It's hard, especially the larger companies. Right, how do you
Speaker 4: break the gatekeepers and get in front of somebody that
Speaker 4: can actually make a decision to sponsor your event?
Speaker 5: Like, how what's the process?
Speaker 6: So there's there's no cookie cut away to do it right,
Speaker 6: It's a long process from just cold calls and cold
Speaker 6: calls going into LinkedIn and finding people in that business
Speaker 6: that you can speak to, networking, reaching out to your network.
Speaker 6: There's no easy way to get in front of the
Speaker 6: right person to be able to say yes or to
Speaker 6: find interest in your brand. It is a process that
Speaker 6: you have to massage. It took us years to get
Speaker 6: a yes from Target. Target is one of our biggest brands.
Speaker 6: It took us years to get a number of sponsors.
Speaker 6: And sometimes it's just a process that you have to nurture,
Speaker 6: and that is just reaching out to your network. And
Speaker 6: a lot of it was cold calls. Honestly, a lot
Speaker 6: of it was cold calls. And when you have the
Speaker 6: right press and after the event, why social media is
Speaker 6: so powerful and be able to put impressions and things
Speaker 6: in your deck for the next year. People start to
Speaker 6: pay attention. So sponsors that didn't pay attention before, now
Speaker 6: we get a meeting. Once you get the meat, then
Speaker 6: you can seal the deal. But sometimes it takes years.
Speaker 6: Sometimes it takes two or three years for somebody to
Speaker 6: say yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: Period.
Speaker 3: So y'all, y'all hit numbers that they couldn't ignore. Right,
Speaker 3: you have thirty five thousand people in the park. We
Speaker 3: have to pay attention.
Speaker 6: These are qualified leads, right. These are people that are
Speaker 6: not here to see a music brand. They're here because
Speaker 6: they want to talk beauty.
Speaker 2: That is your customer.
Speaker 3: That's so incredible, Like there's no featured artists, Like, it's
Speaker 3: y'all on stage. It's y'all in thirty five thousand people
Speaker 3: and y'all getting busy up on stage. I want to
Speaker 3: go back to something really quick, because I think people
Speaker 3: kind of have a misconception about how these festivals work,
Speaker 3: the amount of time you have to put in right,
Speaker 3: so you're not just thinking of in May, hey we're
Speaker 3: going to do this festival. Right, Like I kind of
Speaker 3: we got it behind the scenes. We said, like how
Speaker 3: long does this thing take? And you were like a year,
Speaker 3: a year, a year. It's like literally when one's over,
Speaker 3: you're preparing for the next.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, yeah, when one is over, maybe there's a couple
Speaker 6: of weeks. But even even in that those couple of weeks,
Speaker 6: we're still doing a lot of follow up from the
Speaker 6: year prior, from the festival that was a week ago.
Speaker 6: So it literally takes a year. There are months that
Speaker 6: really start to pick up. And I would say I
Speaker 6: would be yeah, I would be lying for I said
Speaker 6: anything less than a year. It's that it took to
Speaker 6: really from beginning to end to flesh out at full festival.
Speaker 4: Another thing I wanted to ask in regards to marketing
Speaker 4: and getting sponsorships, you said you had mentioned that you
Speaker 4: reached out to the press, right, so do you have
Speaker 4: a PR firm that you work with or like what's
Speaker 4: the processidentther thing that we're learning about as well, like
Speaker 4: how do you what's the process of reaching out to press?
Speaker 4: How do you determine which press you should reach out to?
Speaker 4: Like what's that process?
Speaker 2: So we don't have a PR firm.
Speaker 6: We do everything a lot of I say ninety percent
Speaker 6: of everything ourselves. And Shariz who was as one of
Speaker 6: the members as well. Who's house is pr We would
Speaker 6: do anything from press releases, paying for that right, reaching
Speaker 6: out cold to and and creating. You have to create
Speaker 6: the story for them. Press is looking for content, but
Speaker 6: you have to make yourself feel attractive to them and
Speaker 6: do your research. If if let's say Blavity for the
Speaker 6: last time they covered natural hair, and you find what
Speaker 6: they're interested in, find a way to to transform your
Speaker 6: story in a way that's attractive to them. So we
Speaker 6: had a good article with Forbes and they were attracted
Speaker 6: to us because of they wanted to learn more about
Speaker 6: the story and the business behind it.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the Forbes article, the business behind and the growth, right,
Speaker 6: But we wanted certain press we want to get unless
Speaker 6: they said yes to a story that they felt was
Speaker 6: attractive and related to their audience. So it depends. Huffington
Speaker 6: Post came and covered the event. Uh, it's great that
Speaker 6: we're the largest and you know natural Beauty Festival.
Speaker 2: That's a pitch that we can use.
Speaker 6: You know, you guys have a great podcast, you know,
Speaker 6: the top podcast right now so in business, so that's
Speaker 6: that's something that people are interested in. So it's really
Speaker 6: just finding out what is going to be attractive to
Speaker 6: that specific press. Line it up, create that pitch and
Speaker 6: send it to them and they will pick it up.
Speaker 6: Not every time you would get a lot of notes.
Speaker 6: You may get a yes, we get we got a
Speaker 6: few yeses, and as you get more yeses, the more
Speaker 6: yeses are gonna come.
Speaker 4: So you actually make you write an article and send
Speaker 4: it to them like the articles already written or the
Speaker 4: format of the articles already written.
Speaker 6: It's more like a pitch that so we'll put like
Speaker 6: there's a decon of pitch. Sure, but it's it's not
Speaker 6: a formal deck. It's it's an informal deck. And you
Speaker 6: have a conversation. I want to pitch this idea to you.
Speaker 6: I want to pitch this idea and this is the
Speaker 6: this is the spin on it. This is the largest
Speaker 6: festival in the world run by five black women.
Speaker 2: You need to have this.
Speaker 6: Okay, I'm interested, tell me more right. Then you have
Speaker 6: a conversation about Okay, this is what we can do.
Speaker 2: They want to work with you as long as it
Speaker 2: makes sense to them.
Speaker 6: But you have to get that door open. So for
Speaker 6: for if there is a media avenue that tends to
Speaker 6: like great true stories or stories about women or stories
Speaker 6: about you know, you know, overnight successes, whatever the case
Speaker 6: may be. That is where you need to to reach
Speaker 6: out cold sometimes and say I have a story for
Speaker 6: you that I would like for you to run and
Speaker 6: and more often than not, if they're interested.
Speaker 4: That's dope. Now's a lot of gyms right there. Use
Speaker 4: for information, that's the thing we try to giveing on podcasts.
Speaker 4: Use for information that people can use. In a lot
Speaker 4: of times people just don't know, Like you don't know
Speaker 4: what you don't know? Right, That's what Cole. I'll ask
Speaker 4: guests like you don't know, you don't even know the questions.
Speaker 3: Actually to get the answers exactly.
Speaker 4: It's so much misinformation and just not not a lack
Speaker 4: of information that people So yeah, we thank you for that.
Speaker 4: So all right, okay, moving towards the festival, right, So
Speaker 4: these festivals cost a lot of money to put on,
Speaker 4: Like roughly ballpark figure, like how much would a festival
Speaker 4: like at this point in your development, how much would
Speaker 4: that cost?
Speaker 6: Can easily cost a million dollars to throw the festival. Yeah,
Speaker 6: between a half a million and a million dollars it
Speaker 6: probably takes to throw a festival.
Speaker 3: So you guys have thirty five thousand last year. I'm
Speaker 3: assuming right this year, you probably would be expecting more.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Is that the why we the venue has changed from
Speaker 3: a park to Randoms Island.
Speaker 6: There were a number of factors of why we changed
Speaker 6: to Randoms Island. Mostly it was our surrounding safety. We
Speaker 6: kind of outgrew the space and Prospect Park and we
Speaker 6: wanted to create a save space where we can control
Speaker 6: the number of attendees that come in.
Speaker 2: There were their young children there.
Speaker 3: I don't want that to go over their heads. You
Speaker 3: outgrew thirty five thousand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we outgrew.
Speaker 6: We outgrew the space that we were in a Prospect
Speaker 6: Park for sure, and so we had to find a
Speaker 6: space that would accommodate everyone safely.
Speaker 5: Okay, So all right, so it costs let's say a million.
Speaker 4: So what's the process of Like what how do you
Speaker 4: raise enough money to cover that? Because obviously I would
Speaker 4: assume you have to like pay in stages, or you
Speaker 4: pay all up front, or you.
Speaker 2: Pay like no, you pay in stages.
Speaker 5: Like what's the cost?
Speaker 4: What's like, So, what's some of the costs that's involved
Speaker 4: in running a festival?
Speaker 6: You have securities, you have permit fees, you have security,
Speaker 6: you have the venue space, you have all of the
Speaker 6: requirements that are dictated by the State of New York,
Speaker 6: from the number of porter partties that you have to
Speaker 6: have down to the number of fireguards you have. These
Speaker 6: are big ticket items that add up, and every single
Speaker 6: thing in a space like a park, you have to
Speaker 6: pay for e Nothing comes there but grass, so you
Speaker 6: have to bring your electricity right down to the every signage,
Speaker 6: every banner that goes up. Yeah, pretty much everything.
Speaker 2: Staff t shirts for the staff.
Speaker 6: You know, meals everything. It's just stages, sound, and there
Speaker 6: are permits. There's a long list of permits to have
Speaker 6: in in Prospect Park and as you get bigger, those
Speaker 6: permits get bigger as well.
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Speaker 3: This is why it takes a year.
Speaker 4: So you're doing this in stages, like you're not doing
Speaker 4: it all in one month, obviously, like you might do Okay,
Speaker 4: we're gonna do the lightning, We're gonna lighting we're gonna
Speaker 4: do the porter parties, we're gonna do all that.
Speaker 5: And it's like a stage.
Speaker 6: Yeah, for most things like rentals and we have a
Speaker 6: lot of tents and stuff like that. We put a
Speaker 6: deposit down and we pay as we go. Yeah, it's
Speaker 6: not a one time thing. And sometimes sometimes the checks
Speaker 6: don't come in at the same time that your bills
Speaker 6: go out. And that's a real concern, right, That's a
Speaker 6: real concern that that that we have to prepare for
Speaker 6: when we are trying to figure out what to pay
Speaker 6: next or and and and it goes down to the
Speaker 6: pricing that we set for our ticket prices, our sponsors,
Speaker 6: and all these things come into play.
Speaker 2: When when we make these decisions.
Speaker 3: So you said that three of the girls the founders
Speaker 3: have backgrounds and advertising and marketing. You're in it. Does
Speaker 3: anybody have a background in finance? Like, are y'all just
Speaker 3: figuring this out as you go?
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 2: And I am the finance person. Yeah, I do the book.
Speaker 6: So I've always I had a conversation with some young
Speaker 6: girls the other day and they struggled with one thing
Speaker 6: that they struggled with was trying to figure out what
Speaker 6: they were what they can do their role. And what
Speaker 6: I told them was find out what exactly you're good
Speaker 6: at and lean into that.
Speaker 2: Right. So I've always just been good in numbers.
Speaker 6: I've always been good with logistics, and the role came
Speaker 6: to me and where I felt the need in Curly
Speaker 6: Girl Collected. I didn't come into here being an accountant,
Speaker 6: but I was the best with the numbers and figuring
Speaker 6: out the logistics and the permits and all of those
Speaker 6: things were my wheelhouse. That's what I do as good operations. Yeah,
Speaker 6: direct the operations.
Speaker 4: So let me ask you this, what's the revenue model?
Speaker 4: Because we're never going to apologize for making money in business.
Speaker 4: That's what we're in business for, right. We want to
Speaker 4: support all kinds of businesses, but especially black business. But
Speaker 4: people they're looking at the festival like, okay, a million dollars,
Speaker 4: that's a lot of money.
Speaker 5: That it goes out. How is it profitable?
Speaker 4: Like, what's the revenue model as far as to make
Speaker 4: money from a festival just in general? Festival in general.
Speaker 6: It's not a complex revenue model, but we make you know,
Speaker 6: this is the first year that we are have a
Speaker 6: fully ticketed event. So some of the revenue comes from
Speaker 6: ticket sales and a large portion of the revenue comes
Speaker 6: from sponsors. So it yeah, it is a very expensive event.
Speaker 6: So being mindful of our costs is something that we
Speaker 6: have to do on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: That's me, that's my role. I'm saying no all day.
Speaker 6: We can have a million and one beautiful things at
Speaker 6: the event, but everything costs money and it you know,
Speaker 6: so we have to be able to put make sure
Speaker 6: that we put ourselves in the position that we're not
Speaker 6: at a loss. And that is something that would be
Speaker 6: you know, my responsibility in my role to make sure
Speaker 6: that we we are in the in the black.
Speaker 3: So this is really quick, Like so I'm hearing this
Speaker 3: like this has taking a year to do, right, and
Speaker 3: you're the operations directive for a Curly Girl collective, But
Speaker 3: this isn't like are you doing this full time or
Speaker 3: because I know you do a lot of things outside
Speaker 3: of this, right, and people always they ask like, oh,
Speaker 3: how do you have time to do this? How you
Speaker 3: have time to do that? Like you're running a full
Speaker 3: flag festival and you have another career and I always
Speaker 3: see you doing community service.
Speaker 6: It's like it's very difficult. Hopefully this year it will
Speaker 6: be my full time. We're moving towards that. We have
Speaker 6: one member that has made that jump, and so we're
Speaker 6: moving towards that it's five of us, so it's not
Speaker 6: as easy to be able to say that we can support,
Speaker 6: but we're that's what we're scaling for. That's what We'll
Speaker 6: have another curl Fest in Atlanta. We're trying to make
Speaker 6: the event more of a weekend or a week long
Speaker 6: experience I supposed to one day. So we have a
Speaker 6: couple of events surrounding curl Fest this year as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a Sunday.
Speaker 2: Sunday Scape Party.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 6: We're exploring a couple of different other revenue streams as
Speaker 6: well from all of our merchandising, food and beverage and
Speaker 6: all sorts of things that we haven't really put a
Speaker 6: lot of energy into that we're that we are moving
Speaker 6: towards as well. So it is it is a lot.
Speaker 6: It is not easy to have another full time job
Speaker 6: and try to create and run two festivals.
Speaker 2: It is a stretch.
Speaker 6: If I were to say, if I were to give
Speaker 6: advice to anybody, it would be to know when.
Speaker 2: You it's okay to ask for help.
Speaker 6: We have been doing this on our own for a
Speaker 6: long time, and so much that we get to a
Speaker 6: place every single year that everybody stretched beyond you know,
Speaker 6: we do a lot of people and would look at
Speaker 6: Crowfest and think there's a big corporation behind it, and
Speaker 6: it was for a long time. It was the five
Speaker 6: of us, you know, climbing up on ladders, handing the
Speaker 6: band as ourselves running to and we still do like
Speaker 6: ninety percent of those things now, but we have a
Speaker 6: production company that helps us with our grounds work because
Speaker 6: it's bigger than us. It's bigger than the five of
Speaker 6: us now. So it is a process and we're moving
Speaker 6: to that that transition to make sure that this is
Speaker 6: a sustainable thing, that we're here and it's not a
Speaker 6: one day fluke this we're here to stay.
Speaker 2: We have a.
Speaker 6: Sustainable product and doing research and trying to get more
Speaker 6: revenue streams in so we can make this our full
Speaker 6: time and only thing and nurture it like.
Speaker 3: We need to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ot know where So all right, so yeah, so
Speaker 4: the next segment we're going to talk about scaling, because
Speaker 4: that's the that's the next level evolution.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 4: So now in the last part, we want to talk
Speaker 4: about scaling because you've established a very strong brand and
Speaker 4: you've done events in New York, but now you're taking
Speaker 4: the show on the road, right, But before before, before
Speaker 4: I had to just a random question knock on ward.
Speaker 4: Hopefully this never happens. I don't know if it has
Speaker 4: happened to you. But in business, we always prepare for
Speaker 4: the worst possible case scenario. So you spend a million
Speaker 4: dollars was on a festival.
Speaker 3: If it rains, it's.
Speaker 6: Rain shine event, And yeah, we it's it is the
Speaker 6: nature of having an outdoor event and something that we
Speaker 6: we worry about and we loose sleep about and hasn't happened.
Speaker 6: One year, it did happen, and we were somehow we're
Speaker 6: able to change the date to a later date and
Speaker 6: it actually didn't rain that day, So that happened maybe
Speaker 6: three years ago. But there, Yeah, there are a lot
Speaker 6: of horror stories that we.
Speaker 2: Don't want to think about.
Speaker 6: Like you know, Governor's Ball just recently had to cancel
Speaker 6: their Sunday because of lightning and evacuate everybody.
Speaker 5: So and there's no refund for that. No, it's just
Speaker 5: you're done.
Speaker 2: You're done.
Speaker 6: You have you can get certain some refund for certain things.
Speaker 6: If you have cancelation insurance.
Speaker 4: Would you sell tickets and then you got sponsors they
Speaker 4: already paid too, So it's not that bad.
Speaker 2: I guess it's bad. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, as far as from a money standpoint, you
Speaker 4: don't lose that much money. Could you already the day
Speaker 4: of the event, you already probably made your.
Speaker 6: Money, right, But if you had to cancel the event
Speaker 6: do the lightning, that's a whole other situation. If the
Speaker 6: event didn't even happen, because lightning is another thing. So
Speaker 6: it rains, Okay, it's not the greatest experience.
Speaker 2: You move on.
Speaker 6: If it's lightning and the patrons can't come and the
Speaker 6: event doesn't happen at all, that's a whole another bandwagon.
Speaker 3: That's when you've got to get like cancelation insurance.
Speaker 6: That's when you have to you should have cancelation insurance regardless,
Speaker 6: and that's when you may be able to recoup some things.
Speaker 6: You know, sponsors would probably want their money back or
Speaker 6: some case, but you have to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where cancelations.
Speaker 3: Cancelations, But that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 5: What you have to prepare for.
Speaker 3: You prepare for it.
Speaker 4: Like I said, we prepare for everything. So cancelation insurance, Okay,
Speaker 4: I wasn't aware of that. That's that's interesting. So they
Speaker 4: have they have insurance for those kind of situations.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and y'all knew that, like what all y'all learned
Speaker 3: that on the.
Speaker 6: Way we learned that, we learned that we didn't. Yeah,
Speaker 6: we learned that within the last few years. Is actually
Speaker 6: a lot of these things that we learned as as
Speaker 6: the event grew, it became more from a small outdoor
Speaker 6: picnic to actual festival with a whole another list of
Speaker 6: logistical things that we didn't have to deal with before
Speaker 6: that we have to deal with now.
Speaker 3: All right, So the brand is scaling right New York
Speaker 3: City is July twenty.
Speaker 2: Seventh, July twenty seven.
Speaker 3: Road taking it to the city of Atlanta.
Speaker 6: To the city of Atlanta in the fall of this year.
Speaker 6: We're very excited about it.
Speaker 2: We made that jump.
Speaker 6: We've been talking about it for a long time and
Speaker 6: we're doing it. We are having an event on the
Speaker 6: twenty eighth, right after curl Fest called.
Speaker 5: Roller Set twenty eighth of July.
Speaker 6: Twenty eighth of July that would be at the Lafrax
Speaker 6: Center in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: We're excited about that too.
Speaker 6: So, yeah, we're scaling, We're we're we're putting our feelers
Speaker 6: out there making sure that we have a place here
Speaker 6: to stay, So that's.
Speaker 5: What we're So how do you how do you know?
Speaker 4: Like cause you said even internationally, you thinking about going
Speaker 4: internationally tool, So like how do you test the market?
Speaker 4: Like do you do small events first to see how
Speaker 4: hot you are? Or you just jump in and just say, like,
Speaker 4: how do you know? Obviously you see you see your
Speaker 4: numbers like on Instagram or definitely can see your numbers.
Speaker 4: That's why we check our numbers. We know, like our
Speaker 4: biggest market is New York, our second business market, the
Speaker 4: biggest market is Atlanta.
Speaker 6: That's what you do too, Like, yeah, I would say
Speaker 6: proceed with some level of caution. You have to do
Speaker 6: a little bit of jumping into This year, we did
Speaker 6: an event, a small event in South Africa to test
Speaker 6: that market.
Speaker 3: And it was Afro and beats right, yep.
Speaker 2: Afro and Beads. It was great.
Speaker 6: It was a brunch series a few hundred people and
Speaker 6: attendees and it was great. So we're testing that market.
Speaker 6: Hopefully you'll see a cral Fest in South Africa soon.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So how did you do the South Africa thing?
Speaker 4: Like they knew Instagram and stuff like that, right, So
Speaker 4: you had people in South Africa already or we.
Speaker 6: Had people in South Africa. Tracy was living there for
Speaker 6: some time and people did know about curl fests in
Speaker 6: South Africa, so that was great and they wanted to
Speaker 6: work with us, and there was If you don't know,
Speaker 6: there's a lot of conversation and unrest around natural here
Speaker 6: in South Africa especially, there's a lot of laws right
Speaker 6: going on, the schools, all of that. So it's a
Speaker 6: hot topic and they need that and so we want
Speaker 6: to make it happen for you know, South Africa. Africa
Speaker 6: Punk is there and so we see the shifts as well,
Speaker 6: so we want to take advantage.
Speaker 3: You got people coming from all over the world to
Speaker 3: New York for the event, right, What are some countries
Speaker 3: that are represented.
Speaker 2: Out the curl Fest.
Speaker 6: We've had people from Brazil, from Ghana, from lots, from London,
Speaker 6: all across America. We have surveys that show, you know,
Speaker 6: where these our attendings are coming from. It surprises us
Speaker 6: every time that we see people are traveling, and it
Speaker 6: also lends to the to the fact that there's a
Speaker 6: need that exists. You know, there's nothing out there like that.
Speaker 6: People are coming just for the feeling. They're not coming
Speaker 6: to see a show. They're coming to feel what it
Speaker 6: feels like to be in a place where everyone around
Speaker 6: you looks like you and represented and celebrates you. And
Speaker 6: so that's where we like to make sure that we
Speaker 6: stick to and and and be authentic.
Speaker 4: So all right, So Atlanta, Atlanta is definitely happening. That's happening.
Speaker 5: It's happening where else where else are you are? Do
Speaker 5: you have any other ideas and you think about growing
Speaker 5: going to.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we'd like to do a crow fest in the Caribbean.
Speaker 6: We'd like to do there's a couple of low hanging
Speaker 6: through We love to do a curl fest in London
Speaker 6: and a curl fest in Africa could be in Ghana.
Speaker 6: There was a whole back to Africa movement this year.
Speaker 6: This year is the year of the Return in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 6: four hundred years from slavery, so it's a big deal.
Speaker 6: There was something called Afrochella and Ghana this year which
Speaker 6: was huge. So yeah, we want to we want to
Speaker 6: be able to.
Speaker 2: Make those things.
Speaker 5: That's dope.
Speaker 4: I love that you're thinking globally because I was just
Speaker 4: telling Troy the other day, like we got a DM
Speaker 4: from somebody from Saudi Arabia. He lives in Europe. Shout
Speaker 4: out to Saudi Arabia and shout out to Europe. And
Speaker 4: he was saying, like, we love your podcast, we love
Speaker 4: your content on Instagram, but can you just try to
Speaker 4: talk about more global topics because a lot of stuff
Speaker 4: that you talk about is just America too, and it
Speaker 4: makes you really think, like, you know, we're in the
Speaker 4: day and age now where people all over the world
Speaker 4: is listening and tune and in, so we can't just
Speaker 4: get caught up in our neighborhood or even our country
Speaker 4: like you know. So that's great that you're thinking like that,
Speaker 4: because the whole world needs to needs to experience that,
Speaker 4: not just America or the East Coast or the West
Speaker 4: Coast and everybody all.
Speaker 3: Over the world content and multiple of cultures too. Everybody
Speaker 3: has an idea, yeah what beauty is. So like, just
Speaker 3: to expand on that narrative is important.
Speaker 4: That's important. Shout out to the UK. We're going to
Speaker 4: do something in London. We're coming with you, coming with you,
Speaker 4: that's a fact. We're going to Jamaica.
Speaker 2: And I think Jamaica's on top of the list.
Speaker 6: I think it's a nice Yeah, shout out to some own.
Speaker 5: And Troy of both Jamaican So.
Speaker 4: Shout a DR shout at the We are number two
Speaker 4: on the podcast charts in DR.
Speaker 3: Oh really, number two podcasts.
Speaker 4: Surprise Man, Lord of the Slums, Fernando, shout out to him.
Speaker 4: He was a guest. He's from d All. He's doing
Speaker 4: his thing in Jersey right now. He's a real estate mogul.
Speaker 4: So yeah, shout out to Dr MANH. Yeah, I gotta
Speaker 4: brush up on my Spanish. Got a few more Dikman trips.
Speaker 4: That's gonna happen, all right, So how can the people
Speaker 4: contact you? How can they, you know, get in information
Speaker 4: on the event? Yeah, what's your social media handles? All
Speaker 4: that stuff?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 6: So social media is Curly Girl Collective on Instagram c
Speaker 6: U R L Y G I R L C O
Speaker 6: L l E c T I v E. And then
Speaker 6: on Twitter is I Love CGC and Facebook is Curly
Speaker 6: Girl Collective and follow us. We have tickets dropping again soon.
Speaker 6: We look out for Atlanta tickets dropping our roller set.
Speaker 6: We have a lot of surprises, a lot of sponsors,
Speaker 6: a lot of giveaways. Other events that we haven't even
Speaker 6: announced yet are coming down the pipeline.
Speaker 3: So yes, haven't been and when when's the event in
Speaker 3: New York?
Speaker 5: What day is that against July.
Speaker 6: Twenty seventh on Saturday. And Randall's Island, it is Randall's
Speaker 6: Island is accessible by a car or pedestrian walkway because
Speaker 6: a lot of people do confuse it. Now there's a
Speaker 6: lot of islands in New York governance. So it is
Speaker 6: Randall's Island, very close to Harlem, and you can walk
Speaker 6: for one twenty Fish Street right over, a fifteen minute
Speaker 6: walk and you reach the islands. And our roller set
Speaker 6: is a prospect park and a roller set, a roller
Speaker 6: skating rink called a FRAC Center and Prospect.
Speaker 5: Park, and it's men are welcome as well, right.
Speaker 2: Men are more than welcome. We more men are more
Speaker 2: than welcome.
Speaker 6: So much that we have we have seen within the
Speaker 6: last couple of years our demographic change and our men
Speaker 6: attendance has definitely increased. So we have features and sponsors
Speaker 6: just for you men. We have products just for men
Speaker 6: in our gift bag. So you're more than welcome. Bring
Speaker 6: your children, bring your wives, find a wife.
Speaker 3: Kids under that's a boy. Kids under six are free.
Speaker 2: Kids under six are free. Yeah yeah, oh look at
Speaker 2: that and yeah, we have giveaways.
Speaker 6: So you may win a free ticket to curl Fest
Speaker 6: if you follow us all of that.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be huge. It's gonna be huge.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now, definitely we got to talk the week. Definitely do
Speaker 4: some collapse for sure, because I think that you know
Speaker 4: that that's dope.
Speaker 5: I like I said, we like it.
Speaker 3: And this is a hometown This is a hometown homecoming.
Speaker 3: Part two.
Speaker 4: Yeah, actually, actually someone, this is the second time I
Speaker 4: interviewed someone. I want to tell that story too. So
Speaker 4: I have a public I had a public access channel. No,
Speaker 4: I still do a story on that. So I had
Speaker 4: a public access channel. And when I first started the
Speaker 4: public access channel. Shout out to Mike, he didn't fully
Speaker 4: understand why I was doing public acts. He was like, Yo,
Speaker 4: you should just go to YouTube and we're not monetizing
Speaker 4: public access. But I'm like, I'm not a journalist, I'm
Speaker 4: not an interviewer, right, So I used that as a springboard,
Speaker 4: like I need to season myself and get better. So
Speaker 4: one of the reasons why the podcast is doing well
Speaker 4: now is that I have experience already, right, but I
Speaker 4: still do the public access as well, and that's for
Speaker 4: people just in my community. Just I want to highlight
Speaker 4: us doing good things. So I say that to say,
Speaker 4: never look down on something and never look at something
Speaker 4: like it's too small for you. Because, like I said,
Speaker 4: we have one the top podcasts in the world. I
Speaker 4: don't have to do a public access channel show, but
Speaker 4: I still do it. So I like to do it,
Speaker 4: and that two years of me doing it before we
Speaker 4: started the podcast, I think has helped me in the
Speaker 4: podcast game. And it also shows the growth. Like I said,
Speaker 4: I had some ow on my show two years ago
Speaker 4: and now she's on the podcast two years later.
Speaker 5: So it's just dope.
Speaker 4: So I always tell people that you don't just start
Speaker 4: at the top of the mountain. You have to work
Speaker 4: your way up. And no matter what, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter if ten people are listening or a
Speaker 4: million people are listening. The most important thing is just
Speaker 4: getting content out there, valuable content that can help people.
Speaker 3: So you know, that's crazy that you said that story,
Speaker 3: because it's like so honest, Like people have grown up
Speaker 3: with us. We'll be like, yo, Rashaw was the quietest guy.
Speaker 3: I'm like, really, he talks all the time. They're like, nah,
Speaker 3: he's always quiet. And now I'm listening, like they listen
Speaker 3: to you. Now it's like, Yo, this guy sounds ceasy, right,
Speaker 3: that's all I used to say. I'm like, nah, listen,
Speaker 3: he doesn't start trust me. And now they get to
Speaker 3: see you. That's dope that you said. That's so. That's well.
Speaker 5: You have to talk when it's important to you're talking.
Speaker 3: It's important to you know.
Speaker 4: But shout out, shout out to Atlanta. We're gonna break
Speaker 4: some some some news right now.
Speaker 5: There go.
Speaker 4: Okay, if you follow us, you know that we we
Speaker 4: were testing our reach and we were doing networking events
Speaker 4: all over. So we did the first networking event two
Speaker 4: months ago in La and it was super dope. That
Speaker 4: was just random pop up, like two days before. We
Speaker 4: just announced it and we packed out the venue and
Speaker 4: it was dope. And then we was in Brooklyn two
Speaker 4: weeks ago and I was crazy. You can see the
Speaker 4: footage on Instagram. There was too many people in the venue.
Speaker 4: We spilled out in the street. Atlanta. I promised that
Speaker 4: Atlanta was next, So yes, the eighteenth of July, July eighteenth,
Speaker 4: we will be in Atlanta. By the time you hear this,
Speaker 4: the information will probably already be up but it'll be
Speaker 4: on our website or your Lisia dot com or the
Speaker 4: events tab. Make sure you are s VP because we
Speaker 4: have to to have a RSVP lest because it's too
Speaker 4: many people. Like Brooklyn, it sold out in a day.
Speaker 4: It's free. Yeah, but in twenty four hours we had
Speaker 4: to stop. We reopened it. But Atlanta, I'm pretty confident
Speaker 4: that we're gonna get a very strong turnout. So yeah,
Speaker 4: it's gonna be crazy, it's gonna be dope. Get there early,
Speaker 4: and the whole purpose of the event is to hey,
Speaker 4: you know, you're gonna meet us, but also other professionals,
Speaker 4: other people in your city, like New York and LA
Speaker 4: was crazy, like you might live in the same city
Speaker 4: as somebody or the same block, the same town, but
Speaker 4: you never actually come across them. And then at an
Speaker 4: event like this, you never know who could be your
Speaker 4: real estate partner, you never know who could be your
Speaker 4: business partner, You never know who you know, So it's
Speaker 4: just great. And then we're gonna bring some guests with
Speaker 4: us as well, bring some of the team. Yeah, we're
Speaker 4: gonna bring some of our podcast guests.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're officially alumni now, so yeah, everybody comes, Yeah.
Speaker 4: For sure, so you're gonna be able to talk to
Speaker 4: talk to them. It's gonna be dope, man, you know.
Speaker 4: And like I said, Atlanta, that's our second biggest market.
Speaker 4: That's like our home home away from home. So we
Speaker 4: got to show up to Atlanta. We gotta do it
Speaker 4: right in Atlanta. And then right after the Hills of Atlanta.
Speaker 4: I think Toronto, Canada is gonna be next, but we're
Speaker 4: gonna release information on that later on. Right now, we
Speaker 4: focused on Atlanta. So yes, yes, hit the website, get
Speaker 4: your tickets. We will see you on the eighteenth. Were
Speaker 4: looking forward to it, so troy any housekeeping.
Speaker 3: Patreon dot com. It's moving. Shout out to our new members,
Speaker 3: Adriana and Lejellica. Uh, we just had a conversation with
Speaker 3: Dejon today. He's a part of our armed forces about
Speaker 3: you know, things that he wants to do and how
Speaker 3: we can help him. So shout out to him, and
Speaker 3: shout out to Brenda in the Bay area, who is Uh,
Speaker 3: she's got some connections that she wants us to to like,
Speaker 3: shout out to the Bay Yeah, Capitalizing coming, We're coming
Speaker 3: to should we tell.
Speaker 5: Them not the date yet, but we are coming to Oakland.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're looking at the end of August to come
Speaker 3: back out to California. So we going to Oakland for sure, La,
Speaker 3: We're coming back out there. Patreon dot com Backslasher Angie
Speaker 3: a Leisure. If you want to support the podcast, it's
Speaker 3: different tiers. It's five different ones. It ranges from two
Speaker 3: thousand on up. So feel free to join that any
Speaker 3: level and continue to support the merch.
Speaker 4: Proud to Pay that's what that's when the late great,
Speaker 4: that's what he championed, pro to Pay. Like I always said,
Speaker 4: we're going to give you the information for free. But
Speaker 4: like all things in the world, you know, the podcast,
Speaker 4: it takes money to run a podcast. It takes money
Speaker 4: to go to Atlanta and do these different events things
Speaker 4: of that nature, and go to Oakland and meet entrepreneurs.
Speaker 4: That's another thing too, when we go to cities. We
Speaker 4: just don't go to the city, we meet people in
Speaker 4: the city, interviews there for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, you know, Proud to Pay that's something that you know,
Speaker 4: Patreon allows us to do and we we appreciate everybody
Speaker 4: that is buying merch that you know supports on Patreons.
Speaker 3: It's just more and it's growing. It's growing, right We
Speaker 3: started with two members and now we're up to thirty six,
Speaker 3: So keep supporting. Like what Sha said, you know, hit
Speaker 3: any leisure dot com. Our merch is up there. We
Speaker 3: got a new campaign we're gonna be doing very soon
Speaker 3: and we're gonna be releasing actually taping it now, but
Speaker 3: we're gonna be releasing very shortly. So thank you for
Speaker 3: your support. You know how we love y'all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and before we leave, book Tip of the Week
Speaker 4: is The Richest Man in Babylon. That is that's a
Speaker 4: good book. It's a finance book, but it talks about,
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of common practices and uses that
Speaker 4: anybody can can you utilize, So I highly recommend that book.
Speaker 3: And one last thing, one let's thing. We got a
Speaker 3: shout out. Since this is our beauty episode and we're
Speaker 3: talking about natal here, we got a shoutut the state
Speaker 3: of California. They were the first state to ban discrimination
Speaker 3: based on natural heir. So shout out to California. The
Speaker 3: Crown Act, that's the name of the act. So the
Speaker 3: Crown Act. They've they've been discrimination against natural heir. So
Speaker 3: shout out to California.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and shout out to the town green Berg. Yes,
Speaker 4: Like I said, we all know each other. It's the
Speaker 4: second time we had a guest that we grew up
Speaker 4: with val shout out of Valencia. She was the first,
Speaker 4: Simone's the second. So we got to bring more people
Speaker 4: that we know personally on as well. We know everybody personally,
Speaker 4: but this is you know, high school. So yes, once again,
Speaker 4: thank you guys for rocking with us. We will see
Speaker 4: you next week. Peace Peace.
Speaker 3: Chris Brown dropped the album this week number one album
Speaker 3: in the country, thirty six songs. I'm not did you
Speaker 3: listen to anyone? Not bounce fan, But he made some
Speaker 3: social media like Chris, I'm not saying saying that you
Speaker 3: probably didn't listen to it, and it's thirty six songs,
Speaker 3: the one with Drake got they heard that one Nicki
Speaker 3: Minaj one is kind of weak, right, and you listen
Speaker 3: to it. But he had some social media news. He
Speaker 3: made a comment that of course some I wouldn't say
Speaker 3: what uproar would be the word controversy, controversy, controversy. You
Speaker 3: want to give him the quote, I.
Speaker 4: Don't want to miss quote him, but he said something
Speaker 4: along the lines of I believe that he only it's
Speaker 4: interested in black women were good here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, night women.
Speaker 3: So he did say the night skin part, and people
Speaker 3: took offense to that, and I questioned just the thought
Speaker 3: of what good hair is. So to see people offended
Speaker 3: by it was interesting because I'm like, well, what what What
Speaker 3: did he say that was offensive in the sense that
Speaker 3: he said good here?
Speaker 4: But then I had to think, you know, I just
Speaker 4: thought about, that's a good skapegoat that he can use,
Speaker 4: like y'all tripping.
Speaker 5: I never said it was like what I'm saying, but
Speaker 5: I used to say, what's good here?
Speaker 3: Simply right?
Speaker 6: But when he says, well, what if there's no such
Speaker 6: thing as good here?
Speaker 2: So just the concept of good here is flawed in itself.
Speaker 3: Right, So we we grew up in the era where
Speaker 3: we right like straight here and black whatever that is
Speaker 3: good here? Right, So like I could see why women
Speaker 3: of a certain age would be offended, And then I
Speaker 3: could see why women of a certain age like a
Speaker 3: lot younger or not because they're like, we grew up
Speaker 3: in a culture where every hair is good. And like
Speaker 3: that's why I said, like, when y'all change the narrative
Speaker 3: on it now, it's like it's.
Speaker 4: I think I think it's still like you because women
Speaker 4: stand you understand what it means.
Speaker 5: You understand what it means.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a tough one.
Speaker 6: He's not taught. I mean I would say this in jest,
Speaker 6: he's not. I don't believe he's talking about kinky kois
Speaker 6: good hair.
Speaker 3: I learned this, so this is something too. Like doing
Speaker 3: the research for this this interview was there was like
Speaker 3: grades of hair like four, four, three and two when
Speaker 3: I was like, I.
Speaker 6: Had no idea, but not talking about for that's the curliest, right,
Speaker 6: that's the kinkiest.
Speaker 3: And the reason is so difficult, and this is like
Speaker 3: going even deeper into the researcher was that because the
Speaker 3: oil can't travel from the scalp to the end of
Speaker 3: the hair, so it's it's tougher.
Speaker 6: To right, right, And that's why people of the European
Speaker 6: straight here, they tend to have to wash their hair
Speaker 6: often because the oil does travel from the scalp to
Speaker 6: the end, so it's greasier, easier.
Speaker 2: So that's why they have to wash their hair every day.
Speaker 6: And you don't hear a lot of black women wash
Speaker 6: their hair every day.
Speaker 3: They don't even want to get their hair what a
Speaker 3: lot of times?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, I mean and that that that is shifting
Speaker 6: as well, especially with natural hair, to change that whole,
Speaker 6: you know, because water is actually the the best moisturizer
Speaker 6: for any hair, and it's free.
Speaker 3: They had this video this girl was like she washed
Speaker 3: her hair with shampoo, didn't wash it with conditioner, then
Speaker 3: left leaving conditioner then oil, and.
Speaker 2: Then I'm like, that's normal that.
Speaker 3: She was like, it takes eighty three dollars a month
Speaker 3: just to buy the products and she's doing that all yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's like, yo, that's crazy. But men are so
Speaker 3: like that eighty three dollars a month for the products, right,
Speaker 3: if we think about it, right, most guys I know
Speaker 3: get a haircut every week. Well, that's a haircut, it's
Speaker 3: the same, it's the same price week. You should be
Speaker 3: tipping your barber twenty five. Well I paid thirty five.
Speaker 2: Really, that's a lot. That's very expensive.
Speaker 3: That's one hundred for you spending morning the woman on
Speaker 3: natural hair.
Speaker 5: It's not outrageous. Have special hours, oh you gets the
Speaker 5: whole barber.
Speaker 4: I can't. I can't afford to go to Saturday more.
Speaker 4: You're around for five hours.
Speaker 3: Those days are done here.
Speaker 4: Nonsense, Like I can't I need to get nine o'clock
Speaker 4: in the morning on a Thursday. So we have a
Speaker 4: special relationship. So you got to pay people for that.
Speaker 4: You gotta pay. You got to overpay people.
Speaker 3: But you're spending more than the woman who's doing the
Speaker 3: natural hair.
Speaker 5: Absolutely not women paying one hundred dollars to get their
Speaker 5: hair done.
Speaker 3: I'm just talking about the ship that can the I'll
Speaker 3: keep of it.
Speaker 5: You gotta get your hair done.
Speaker 3: That cost ye, and that's crazy, like that can range
Speaker 3: from two hundred to two thousand. Yeah my own, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's not outrageous.
Speaker 5: Two thousand dollars at your hair done? What are you
Speaker 5: talking about?
Speaker 3: Not a haircut? Like if it's like.
Speaker 2: That's still a lot.
Speaker 3: But somebody is like, like you got Cardi B's hairstyles.
Speaker 3: I mean, but he has to have he has clients too,
Speaker 3: because he's not always going to do huh like these.
Speaker 2: People chargings possibly.
Speaker 3: And weaves and all that. That's tough, man.
Speaker 6: So you don't feel so back to Chris Brown, let's
Speaker 6: go back. You don't feel that anyone should have a
Speaker 6: right to be offended.
Speaker 3: I think women should do have a right to phil
Speaker 3: offend it. I understood why they were offended because like
Speaker 3: I said, I'm thinking from a demographic demographic of women
Speaker 3: who grew up with thinking that their hair wasn't good enough,
Speaker 3: and I think they do have a right to phil offended.
Speaker 6: Do you also feel like every person should have a
Speaker 6: right to their own preference?
Speaker 3: Yes, I had. This conversation is a good conversation. I
Speaker 3: spoke to a young man, he's twenty three years old, right,
Speaker 3: and I said, what's your preference? And he said, light
Speaker 3: skinned women with long hair, right. I said why, And
Speaker 3: he's like, you know, I just think that I'm attracted
Speaker 3: to him. I said, that's funny because your mother looks
Speaker 3: nothing like that. No, no, no, no, but I said, that's
Speaker 3: the first but no, look, hit me out. That's the
Speaker 3: first woman you come in contact with. You don't see
Speaker 3: any woman more than her in most cases, right, But
Speaker 3: you're attracted to something that's the direct opposite of what
Speaker 3: she is. So what happened? The world happened?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, perception of what you think beauty is change from
Speaker 3: what you grew up seeing.
Speaker 5: So let me play Devil's advocate, because lgs like, oh
Speaker 5: atract what if you?
Speaker 4: Okay, what if you there's different characteristic or different features
Speaker 4: that you may be attracted to. Right, So let's let's
Speaker 4: say somebody is attracted to a more curvacious woman. Right,
Speaker 4: that's more black in Spanish? Right, No, no, what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But naturally a natural, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 4: what if what if somebody likes more full lips, that's
Speaker 4: black women, right, they like those elements. But what if
Speaker 4: they like long, straight hair. That's not that's more European, right,
Speaker 4: But what if they like both like this? Like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I like full lips, but I like straight hair as well.
Speaker 4: Not that I don't like black women, but that's just
Speaker 4: what I like. So it's like, you understand what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 4: what if somebody so.
Speaker 3: Even the things you describe, the characterisists you describe, those
Speaker 3: are all features of black women, he said, Wait, let
Speaker 3: me finish, Let me finish. Whereas at a certain time,
Speaker 3: those things will look down upon the full lips, look
Speaker 3: at her big butt, like she has big chested. Now
Speaker 3: this culture that is accepted, that is what is preferred.
Speaker 4: Whereas like exactly, but so I'm saying that's champions right,
Speaker 4: So now, but that's it.
Speaker 3: Then what does that do to our women? It's celebrating them.
Speaker 3: It's not. I think it is not because now the
Speaker 3: woman who doesn't look like them, or can I use you,
Speaker 3: doesn't look like you, it's being championed where it's like, yo,
Speaker 3: she's had this the whole time, you feel me.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, I think that supermodels for years, for supermodel
Speaker 4: for years, you have to be one hundred pounds. You
Speaker 4: can't have any curves, you can't have. That's like what
Speaker 4: they look, right, that's the look that has been put out.
Speaker 4: It's still being put out. So I think to not not.
Speaker 4: I mean there's some changing it, no, but I'm just
Speaker 4: saying the majority model they look like, right, So that's
Speaker 4: the idea of beauty. So to champion somebody who has
Speaker 4: a more natural body, right, I think, in my opinion,
Speaker 4: that's a celebration of Okay, this is what most a
Speaker 4: lot of women look like. Every woman and nothing knock
Speaker 4: anybody that's one hundred pounds either, but a lot of
Speaker 4: women aren't that. So I think that that is a
Speaker 4: step forward, right, and that's a celebration of black women Spanish.
Speaker 3: I think that's a celebration of accepting different body types.
Speaker 3: I think that's true. What you're saying, I think is
Speaker 3: a thing.
Speaker 6: I think you have to I think there's nothing wrong
Speaker 6: with the preference. However, you really have to get clear
Speaker 6: on the on the reason why you have this preference,
Speaker 6: and preference is not an innate thing. Preference is something
Speaker 6: that has learned behavior. So what Troy was saying is
Speaker 6: I agree with and not that you're attracted to your mother,
Speaker 6: but she is the first representation of beautiful to you
Speaker 6: in your household. And a lot of women also find
Speaker 6: the first representation of what a man should be in
Speaker 6: their father. And that's not that's not an unnatural thing
Speaker 6: to to to do. And as as we grow up
Speaker 6: and and we have to really come back to realizing
Speaker 6: to identifying not only why you are attracted to black
Speaker 6: features on white or a non black.
Speaker 2: Women, why is that?
Speaker 6: But why is it that you feel the kinky here
Speaker 6: is not beautiful? Also that question as well. You may
Speaker 6: it may be hard to admit, but a lot of
Speaker 6: men who say my preference is long here, straight long
Speaker 6: here on black women also feel like the India Arias
Speaker 6: of the world are not beautiful, or there are kinky here,
Speaker 6: short hair is not beautiful, And it begs the question
Speaker 6: as to why do you feel that way? What is
Speaker 6: authentically black on a black woman is considered not beautiful.
Speaker 6: I had this conversation before as well, that.
Speaker 2: You know, black.
Speaker 6: Features on on on white or non black women is
Speaker 6: treasured for some men, right looked at as a trophy piece,
Speaker 6: And these are black features. So the Kim Kardashians of
Speaker 6: the world that have this curvaceous figure are black features
Speaker 6: or you know, or dark skin or on non black women,
Speaker 6: or for whatever reason, champions on not black non black women.
Speaker 6: And I think it really is a deeper question as
Speaker 6: to why, and even within ourselves. I'm not just on
Speaker 6: men and different genders. When I say it was a
Speaker 6: hard conversation for a difficult step for black women to
Speaker 6: go out with natural hair, it's because she also in
Speaker 6: herself had to admit that, yes, I thought that was ugly, right,
Speaker 6: And I still think I'm ugly, and I still don't
Speaker 6: get as much attention when I walk out with my
Speaker 6: small afro as opposed to when I have a sixteen
Speaker 6: inch weave. And we have to counter these things because
Speaker 6: we're taught them.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that's but also.
Speaker 8: I think it's all about I think a lot of people, Yeah,
Speaker 8: that's that's that's programming.
Speaker 4: But then also I think that we have to get
Speaker 4: away from that standpoint of that, like there's no one
Speaker 4: look for black people because you go to like even
Speaker 4: in Africa, right, like you go to East Africa, Somalia,
Speaker 4: their hair is real curly and more straight, where if
Speaker 4: you go to Senegal their hair is very kinky. They're
Speaker 4: both black, like you know what I mean, But there's
Speaker 4: different There's black people with blue eyes.
Speaker 5: My son is black. He has blonde hair, naturally blond hair,
Speaker 5: so but.
Speaker 6: It's more of a regressive trait. While he has blue
Speaker 6: eyes and blond hair. It's not authentically African or black feature.
Speaker 6: They're obviously mixes and races gives us recessive traits, and
Speaker 6: that's why we have black people with blue hair, blind eyes,
Speaker 6: but it's not authentically black thing. And so that's why
Speaker 6: when when I would go to let's say Ghana and
Speaker 6: there was this little young girl with blue eyes, they
Speaker 6: were they were like groveling over her because it's just
Speaker 6: this European feature on this young black girl and it
Speaker 6: was just the most beautiful thing in the world. When
Speaker 6: your brown eyes are just as beautiful as anything.
Speaker 3: Else, it's like color is Jamaica.
Speaker 5: It's different.
Speaker 4: It's different though too though they were always going to
Speaker 4: track to something that's different. So all of us have
Speaker 4: brown eyes. He has blue eyes. Naturally, it's just different.
Speaker 3: Let me look at him.
Speaker 5: But I mean, it is, it is.
Speaker 4: It is something that obviously, racism is very real, and racism,
Speaker 4: the effects of racism, it's ongoing. It's not just because
Speaker 4: you pass a bill and you're allowed to vote doesn't
Speaker 4: mean that psychologically what has been done for a long
Speaker 4: period of time is still it's still going on. And
Speaker 4: as you said, even in Jamaica, a lot of times
Speaker 4: people are bleaching their skins. Yeah, that's obvious, Like you're
Speaker 4: saying like that, what is going on with that? So,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it's it's a deep topic that
Speaker 4: can go on for a long time. But I think that,
Speaker 4: you know, the first step is to awareness. And as
Speaker 4: I said, that's one of the good things about what
Speaker 4: you're doing is that you're putting it out there in
Speaker 4: the forefront. And it's confidence is extremely important. And more
Speaker 4: and more people are more confident, and you see that
Speaker 4: every day, and now it's becoming more normal, like it's
Speaker 4: not even a big deal. You see somebody with AFRO.
Speaker 4: Now it's not a big deal. It's just like, all right, it's.
Speaker 3: Becoming normal us, right, yeah, now, but what he's saying
Speaker 3: is one hundred percent because like as a husband, like
Speaker 3: when my wife is doing natural here right, and then
Speaker 3: like she my daughter will see that that that's beautiful.
Speaker 3: So like you won't know the effects of what you
Speaker 3: guys are doing right now, but it generationally you'll come
Speaker 3: back to look at this moment, like when you were
Speaker 3: saying India re, I remember when she was doing that,
Speaker 3: I am not my head. And then like in that
Speaker 3: same time, Chris I put out good here right, So
Speaker 3: we had the I'm saying, yeah she was outat right,
Speaker 3: Lauren right for sure, and it was like these things
Speaker 3: have like slowly happened, but like now it's at the forefront,
Speaker 3: like y'all are the leaders of it. Like that's crazy.
Speaker 3: Like this girl used to sit in Woodlands.
Speaker 2: High School, I would hope.
Speaker 6: So, yeah, that's the vision is for us to be
Speaker 6: change agents in the beauty industry, in the space. So
Speaker 6: thank you, thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: All right, Jisell, you can stop it now.
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